Yin-yang
by NanbeiNoHana
Summary: Every story has two sides. Even if you don't know it. Even if you don't notice it. Even if you don't want to believe it. [NejiSaku]


**Disclaimer:** It still doesn't belong to me! But I'm working on it ;-)

* * *

**Yin**

Just like every ordinary early morning, I'm looking at the sky. Outside the dawn is breaking, but inside, in the dark, I'm aching to be free. Because I'm trapped in my life and it seems to have no way out. It is driving me insane, and yet I just can't get out of this cycle. Really, sometimes I don't know myself why I'm still into this.

Just like every ordinary late night, I'm trying my hardest to stay awake. In the first few hours it's easier, but as the morning sun goes up my eyes go down and stubbornly close. I don't want to sleep; I can't fall asleep. I wonder if one day I will survive the break of dawn.

Just like every fucking day in my life, I'm cursing myself for being stupid. For being weak. For falling – again. For not being able to get the hell out of that mess. And for being naïve enough to believe that, one day, things will change for better.

Just like every single minute of my damned existence, I'm asking myself for the millionth time why I love someone who doesn't love me back. Why I can't just forget and move on with my life. Why I let myself stay and be in this living hell.

Just like every time these thoughts cross my mind, I can feel a strong arm around my waist. Pulling me against a warm chest. Giving me just the right (and very tiny, may I add) amount of affection, large enough to make me stay and small enough to prevent me from hoping.

I feel so cheap.

This is why every morning I fight to stay awake. Because that bastard is never there when I wake up. I only wanted to greet him good morning, and maybe get a kiss on the forehead, which would be enough to make me happy for the day.

Did I mention I feel cheap?

I know this morning won't be different. It's like magic. As soon as I fall asleep, he vanishes without a trace. Even his scent is gone from his pillow, and I still don't understand how he does that. My eyes are heavy now. I will fall asleep in any minute, and the sun will be up and the husband will be gone.

Yeah, because I was dumb enough to marry a man who told me – and shows me, every day – he would never love me. And I thought I could change him. You can see the result. We're married for almost ten years now. I can't say he's a terrible husband, though. He is always respectful, responsible, a good father – sometimes I envy our children, and I feel even worse because of that – and a fucking good sex partner – no pun intended. Every night he's not on a mission and I'm not on a night shift, we have sex. At these times, I like to pretend we're making love. I like to pretend he loves me and won't leave me alone in our bed in the morning. I like to pretend I really mean something to him. As much as I can't complain about the sex – he never failed in pleasuring me – I would easily trade it for love and tenderness. Because I'm tired of feeding on the crumbs of his attention. And, still, I can't get rid of it.

My eyes are impossibly heavy. This is a new record; I never stayed up that far. But I know my brain is giving up – my body already did. Any second from now I will fall asleep, and when I wake up he won't be here.

I slowly open my eyes. He's not here. This silly hope of mine makes me want to kill myself sometimes. Why am I still hoping he will change? Well, at least he covered my naked body with the sheets, but I know he does it to protect me from pervert eyes, not from the cold. I think I slept for only half an hour, but his side of the bed is already ice cold. Just like his heart. I have to get up, my shift starts in one and a half hour. Wrapping myself in my almost unused sleeping yukata, I trudge to the bathroom. The lady in the mirror scares the crap out of me. Who the hell is that ghost with grayish pink hair, opaque green eyes and a face of a 90-year-old? She looks vaguely familiar and copies every single move I make. She's been haunting my bathroom for a while now; perhaps I should exorcize it. But only after my shift. Shit, I'm getting late! While on the shower, I use one of my medical jutsus to dissipate the bags under my eyes. Some of my muscles are sore from the wild night, but I have to save chakra for my patients. When I finish my shower, the scary lady on the mirror is gone. Perhaps she's afraid of water.

While I'm dressing in my ivory medic uniform, I hear three giggling voices coming to my room. And there come my three reasons to bear the miserable life I have. I give a kiss and a hug to each of my brown-haired, white-eyed children. They're going to their classes in the Ninja Academy, and sometimes I forget how fast those three little angels grow. Hitoshi, my son, is 9, and Hanako and Haruko, my twin daughters, are 7. Even if they inherited Neji's eyes and hair, their faces look just like mine. Destiny is ironic, sometimes. He loves three little look-alikes, but doesn't love the original. It makes me wonder if he would love me too if I dyed my hair brown and used white contacts.

In no time they are gone, and I get to the kitchen to have my lonely breakfast. Sometimes Hinata-chan drops by and makes me company, but lately she is busy with her own life. She is working to the bones, trying to overcome the loss of her late fiancé.

And this is one more reason why my life is so crappy. As soon as we got married, Neji forbade me to work as a kunoichi. He told me missions were too dangerous and I was still a chuunin, and all that overprotective crap. At that time, I thought he was worried about me. Now I see that yes, he wanted me to live, but only to give him heirs and raise them. Can you imagine him changing a diaper? I think he would love me before he does anything like that.

Working only on the hospital kept me alive, that's true. But, on the other hand, I had to see many, many dear friends go. And, with each one of them, one part of me was gone, too. I never cried in front of him, until that sunny day when I couldn't save Ino-pig. That day, he held me until I passed out because of crying desperately. The day after I was depressed, which was natural, and I thought he would support me just like the day before. I couldn't be more wrong. He told me to get over it and stop crying for someone who wasn't strong enough to keep herself alive. How could he insult my best friend like that? We had the hugest fight ever, and I practically moved to the hospital, working shift after shift trying to keep my sanity. Trying to make it up for not being able to save more people.

We spent more than a week not speaking to each other, not seeing each other, until one day when a servant came to the hospital saying that Haruko was sick. That damned bastard sent someone to tell me that. It was our daughter, damn it! That day, I learned that his pride is bigger than anything else. Of course I went home immediately. It turned out that she had pneumonia and had to go right away to the hospital. I stayed with her until she got better, which happened 16 days later, and in the meantime Neji visited her only when I was taking a shower or eating something out of the room. During Haruko's stay in the hospital, I guess I slept only 10 hours. Needless to say, I collapsed from tiredness, and Shizune told me, years later, that she'd never seen Neji that scared before. It wasn't the first time I overexerted myself, but it was the first time he saw me like that. I was looking like a corpse, and although he doesn't love me, I don't think he hates me and I don't think he would be happy if I died. Still, he never apologized to me, and eventually I gave up on wanting him to.

Someone is ringing the bell. I stop drinking my tea and go see who's there, hoping it isn't a massive emergency in the hospital. I open the door and see a woman in Chinese clothing with two (ridiculous) buns in her head. Really, who wears that childish hairstyle in their middle thirties? Her wide smile is as genuine as a plastic bush. She is looking for _Neji-kun _because they have a mission together today. In front of everybody else, especially Neji, Tenten is the perfect friend. She's always there for _him_ no matter what. She baby-sits our children when we need to go out, she makes him soup when he's sick and I'm in the hospital, she massages his shoulders when he's tense.

I hate her.

I know better than everybody else; she's a vixen trying to steal my husband. She always insinuates she has an affair with him. One day I asked him if it was true. He looked at me deep into my eyes and told me that he would never cheat on me. And Neji never lies to me, so I believed him. In your face, bitch! I'm the wife; you're the slut. Suck it up.

I tell her I don't know where he is. Which was true; I had a vague idea where he could be, but I wouldn't share it with her. She blows me a kiss and turns to leave, and I have to use all the willpower I_ don't_ have to stop myself from killing her right now.

After an abnormally stressful day at the hospital – and I mean it; I'm used to unstoppable stress, but today all the records were broken – I manage to drag my battered body back home. I am so out of chakra that no one noticed I'm in the house. I can hear Neji (didn't he have a mission with Tenten?) telling our children a fairytale where the prince and the princess got married and lived happily ever after – the usual. Hanako asks him why people get married. He answers that, when two people love each other very much, they want to spend the rest of their lives together, which is possible by getting married. Then Hitoshi asks if Neji loves me, because we are married. My heart aches when I hear my son's question, because I know the answer. My husband answers his question with a good night and leaves the room, only to meet me outside the door. As usual, he doesn't say a thing, not even a welcome back, and heads to the library.

I enter the kids' room. Each of them has their own room, but they like to sleep together. I never complained, because it is not everyday that siblings get along that well. Haruko asks me why I married her father. I give her the honest answer – _because I love him, sweetie_. Then she asks me why he married me, since he doesn't seem to love me. When did that girl become so perceptive? I tell her I don't know how to answer that question, and the worst thing is I really don't now exactly why he agreed in marrying me. But I assure them we both love them very much. Giving each one a good night kiss, I silently leave their room.

I can't help but remember how we got engaged. I was in my apartment, recovering from a mission that went pretty, pretty bad - I almost died. Scratch that; I died a few times, but my fellow doctors were able to bring me back. Tsunade-shishou told me to avoid extreme emotions: I was not supposed to read a romantic novel, watch a teary drama or even laughing at some silly sitcom. So, I was there, doing absolutely _nothing,_ when someone knocked on my door. I was stunned to see _the_ Hyuuga Hiashi in my humble doorstep. What could he want with me? I hoped everything was ok with Hinata-chan and Hanabi-chan. I invited him in and he told me he was there on Neji's behalf. At that time I thought Neji, my dearest white-eyed brown-haired oh-so-sexy man-of-my-dreams genius, should be dying. That was the only reasonable explanation. But my assumption was wrong. The Hyuuga leader was there to ask me if _I_ would marry his nephew Neji. Yes, you got it right. He said it as if we were making a commercial agreement of sorts. It took a minute to sink in. Those Hyuuga people were not a romantic kind, but, what the hell, it was a MARRIAGE PROPOSAL (strange and cold, but still) and the lucky man would be exactly the one I just happen to have a little (a huge) crush on. Happiness just flew through my veins... And now I was the one dying, choking on the mint tea I was drinking, trying desperately to breathe. Trying to survive the waves of pain that came instantly. When I opened my eyes, I saw him by the hospital bed, _my_ hospital bed. I passed out again. I finally woke up. Although I saw no one, I heard his voice clearly. He told me not to get too excited about the wedding thing. It was arranged for practical reasons, not for some silly girly reason such as love. After he left, I noticed I neved said 'yes', but, really, I know I would never ever have said 'no' to him.

This memory makes me feel ashamed of myself, even today.

Our wedding was über expensive, luxurious and full of people I'd never met before. I wanted a simple ceremony, but the Hyuugas insisted in having a huge party. What could I do but comply? During the ceremony, I tried my best not to look into his eyes. But curiosity took the best of me and I quickly glanced at him after it was over. It was brief, but I could swear I saw something in his eyes. It was... it was love. He was looking at me with the most loving look I've ever seen in my life. It didn't last long, though. The warm feeling was soon replaced by a sharp pain, and there I was, lying on the floor, right in my wedding party.

We had to postpone our honeymoon because of this little incident, and also because he had one mission after another. Eventually we canceled it. He seemed to be relieved because of that, but I decided to keep quiet. And Hitoshi was born before our first anniversary, closely followed by the girls. So we will never have our honeymoon, or even a family trip. I feel sorry for the kids; as for me, there isn't anything else Neji can do to make me feel any worse. I'm already at the bottom of the pit.

I go to my bedroom. I need a shower and a good night of sleep, knowing that I will have to choose only one of them – I keep smelly, Neji gets disgusted and lets me sleep; or I get clean, Neji gets turned on and I'll have another waking night. I choose to take a shower; I'll deal with him later. Only if I could divorce him… but no, in our pre-nuptial contract, it says that if we ever get divorced, the children stay with him. And I can bear anything but being away from my kids.

After toweling my hair, I go out of the bathroom clad in my sleeping yukata, hoping he would get the 'I wanna go to sleep now' message. He is laying on the bed, in his perfect black yukata – he looks SO hot when he wears that particular yukata – reading some scroll. Then he looks at me, and I ask him why he's home if he had a mission today. He tells me he asked not to go because he would have to be alone with Tenten, and he knew I wouldn't like it. And he gets back to his reading. Now I'm here, laying on my side with my back turned to him, trying to understand why this sudden care about my opinion. Sleep is slowly claiming me, and I'm already getting into the realm of dreams, when I feel his hot breath just beneath my ear. It's one of my weaknesses, and that bastard knows that. He knows I like it too much to ignore it. Despite the screams of my mind, my body starts to wake up again, heating under every touch of his skilled hands. I can't help but moan when I feel his hand cupping one of my breasts, squeezing it lightly, playing with my nipple and making me hate myself for not being able to resist him.

I feel so cheap.

Just like every time this thought crosses my mind, I'm feeling a strong arm around my waist. Pulling me against a warm chest. Giving me just the right (and very tiny, may I add) amount of affection, large enough to make me stay and small enough to prevent me from hoping.

Just like every single minute of my damned existence, I'm asking myself for the millionth time why I love someone who doesn't love me back. Why I can't just forget and move on with my life. Why I let myself stay and be in this living hell.

Just like every fucking day in my life, I'm cursing myself for being stupid. For being weak. For falling – again. For not being able to get the hell out of that mess. And for being naïve enough to believe that, one day, things will change for better.

Just like every ordinary late night, I'm trying my hardest to stay awake. In the first few hours it's easier, but as the sun goes up my eyes go down and stubbornly close. I don't want to sleep; I can't fall asleep. I wonder if one day I will survive the break of dawn.

Just like every ordinary early morning, I'm looking at the sky. Outside the dawn is breaking, but inside, in the dark, I'm aching to be free. Because I'm trapped in my life and it seems to have no way out. It is driving me insane, and yet I just can't get out of this cycle. Really, sometimes I don't know myself why I'm still into this.


End file.
